Chilling Romance -- a horror heroine is meant to be alone

first in a long time! A K-movie review.

First, behold the beauty that is Lee Min-Ki in full plumage as a stage magician:

LONG LIVE THE GUYLINER \o/

Okay.

From this, don't get the wrong idea that this is a serious goth-rock record or anything. The point of this is: Lee Min Ki=ELECTRIC, and also, this movie is very pretty when it's moody.

my summary would go thus:

Jo-Goo is a pretty normal guy -- in fact, when our heroine drunkenly sums up his life as "nice family, nice school, started magic to impress the girls, always a sexy girlfriend" he can't really argue with it. Yeo-Ri, however, is the opposite. And when he spots her looking ghost-like in his street-performing crowd one day, an idea for his "signature act" unfolds in his mind.

A year later, he's performing in a nice-sized theatre, clearly successful, with a whole team that includes Yeo-Ri. Her avoidance of any social interaction niggles at him, though--and after a fun series of events totally recognizable from any Korean drama/rom-com flick...he finds out she's literally haunted.

And so unfolds the OTHER side of this movie.
It's a movie that sews together horror tropes and the romantic comedy, and while it's not flawless (or seamless) it delivers *perfectly* on that premise.

I'm a horror light-weight--I can handle monster-fighting anime aimed at boys, and that's...about it. So I was squeezing my eyes almost closed or pulling one of the headphones off so I didn't get freaked out. However, I know enough about horror from being alive in the world today that I'm pretty sure it wasn't really scary, just more touching on a lot of the tropes.

(Particularly, the Asian Ghost Story subset of horror tropes.)

The emotional core of this movie was stronger for the horror strain than most romantic comedies, actually. One of the theme statements fairly early on involves the idea that a girl in a horror flick is alone--because otherwise it wouldn't be scary. This theme is both delved into (without copping out on the level of horror someone close to her will go through) and given a really nice treatment at the end.

We did not escape the Inevitable Airport Plea Scene, but there was a cute twist on it that makes the actual dialogue that happened in it lodge as less cliched. In fact, now I've been away from it a while, the resolution of that theme of loneliness, stands out to me even more.

A pretty movie (though the CG didn't often match up) with a strong core, and a fun mix of genre without losing sight of the main thing: seeing a resonant happy ending.

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